As you may remember last year Mattel let fans vote on a character to be included in the 2013 lineup. They took candidates voted on from He-Man.org and Eternia.de plus their own choices and let everyone who signed up for a subscription cast a vote. The candidate selected from Eternia.de was the final winner and now appears in figure form: Geldor.

Geldor was a one shot villain who appeared in the vintage mini-comic "The Secret Liquid of Life". Why of all the vast number of characters that could have been made did this guy win? Well one thing I've come to understand is that in Germany the cartoon did not have the massive distribution and following it has in the US so many fans over there had only the mini-comics that came with the figures to draw from for their real nostalgia. Of course that still doesn't explain why he got picked over others like Lodar who, in my opinion at least, looks a lot cooler. Nor how he managed to win over the other choices. Granted the poll was sort of rigged with half the choices being pointless variants and everyone else being super obscure and/or not that interesting looking choices. (Plus there was the conspiracy theory when the vote was super close between Geldor and Illumina -who Mattel had expressed disinterest in ever making- and then the poll closed a couple days earlier than they said it would) For the record; I voted for Songster.

But the point is Geldor is who got made so he's who we'll be looking at. Geldor comes in the standard MOTUC blister card package. Subscribers got a bonus with a new logo sticker sheet included. If you bought day of sale it did not come with the stickers. The sheet includes a couple of the newest "He-Ro Son of He-Man" stickers which is bittersweet since it's unlikely we'll be seeing any more from that faction unless the line can survive through 2016. The back of the card shows off other figures in the line and presents a new bio for the character.

The bulk of the bio is a summery of the events from the mini-comic. The back story is new and I can appreciate giving a sense of motivation to the character to flesh him out. However it makes the dragon's seem evil and, while there are a few, most Eternian dragons are depicted as good or simple animals not good or bad. I also do not recall ever hearing of any place called Foodar before. The only Foodar I know of is a character in the comic strip Get Fuzzy. And then there's the ending of the bio which changes it so Geldor is still alive. Hell no! You expect us the fans to accept the deaths of such beloved characters like Sorceress and Man-At-Arms, but this nobody gets to escape his existing canon death? I think not!

The call has been challenged an upon review the refs find that Geldor is DEAD! The original ruling stands; Geldor is dead! Look, I understand that you may want to take a small one shot villain and expand him into a recurring one. I can even understand retconing a death, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Lord Masque turned into smoke when he died -you can argue he wasn't actually dead. Evilseed wilted away but he's a weed they always come back. Even Saurod's death in the live action movie was undone because of the altered timeline that would have resulted from the ending. But Geldor is clearly absorbed/eaten alive/ has his life force consumed by the tree. You can't being him back because he didn't get out of the cocadodoide tree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now just because a character died in canon does not mean we can't have a figure of them so let's move on and take a look. Geldor captures the look from the mini-comic very well. His head sculpt is right on with the white hair done in a mohawk and his odd combination mustache/mutton chops. He also has that evil looking toothy grin. Some fans have said he looks more like a white guy with a tan instead of a black guy like he's supposed to be. I wouldn't go that far but I do agree his skin tone does seem a bit lighter than in the mini-comic.

Geldor uses the standard buck for his torso shoulders, biceps and upper legs. He has the gloved forearms and hands. His lower legs are actually a new piece as are his boot tops. The part covering the knees is actually part of the lower leg sculpt with the swivel joint below it. Although his loincloth design in similar to Skeletor's but is actually new as is his armor which has a design akin to Tri-Klops but is still unique with the straps that plug into the back and lead to what the fandom has jokingly dubbed his nipple rings. (To be fair those are in an awkward spot on the armor)

Geldor comes with two accessories. First there is his large battle axe as seen on the cover of the comic. The handle is about as long as He-Man's axe so it is meant mostly for one hand, but you can get a few two handed poses out of it. The other accessory is right out of his comic with the very small glass of the Secret Liquid of Life. The whole cup is made out of a clear plastic and designed to look like there is liquid inside the glass. While very simple in design, I do like getting this Eternian artifact for the figure line. And remember I'm not the biggest fan of the mini-comics, but I still like this. The only real problems is 1. it's so small that, while to proper scale, it's something that could easily end up lost; and 2. You need to cram it into Geldor's hand which stretches the plastic a bit so if you have him holding this for a while then take it out of his hand and try to replace it with a weapon, his grip will be loose.

^^(I'm not making that up. That's the actual definition -obviously the character's name is not intended to mean anything)

I don't really have much more to say about this figure as frankly he's pretty plain and kind of dull. Positive proof that I cannot suppress my completionist mentality for this line. I don't understand how he won the fan vote, though I admit he's a better choice than any of the variants but personally I can think of many more deserving characters. Bottom line, while the figure is a perfect transition of the character into toy form, I'm not impressed with the character and he's not growing on me like others have. He did end up selling out though so look to the secondary market if you want him. Until next time, Good Journey.

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